I’m
usually on the opposite side of people from the Fairness & Accuracy
in Reporting (FAIR) group, but Peter Hart’s article, “The
New Crossfire: Where Both Sides Support War With Syria,” is
right on target. Peter Hart is the activism director at the left-wing
group. He is already troubled by the direction of the new CNN “Crossfire”
program, even though it is not on the air yet.

He writes, “CNN
is bringing back Crossfire next month, but viewers on August 27 got a
taste of what they might expect: The left thinks we should bomb Syria,
while the right thinks we should have started that a long time ago.”He
is talking about a mini “debate” on CNN, during which John
Berman, filling in as guest host on the show The Lead, moderated a discussion
of striking Syria between “conservative” S.E. Cupp and the
“left-leaning” Van Jones.

“I want to
commend the President for finally following through on our red line threats,”
said Cupp. “That’s important. That’s important for our
credibility.”Jones replied, “This President has now said there
is a red line. It was not clear before whether the line was crossed. It’s
crossed, he’s moving forward. I think we need to stand behind this
President and send a clear message to Assad that this type behavior is
not acceptable.”

The exchange was
captured on YouTube in
a video headlined, “Van Jones & S.E. Cupp Agree on Syria
Airstrikes!”

This is hardly an
example of a real “crossfire” on the issues. A cynic might
say that the channel was trying to create the perception of left-right
support for Obama’s proposed strike on Syria.

However, former Republican
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the lead conservative co-host on the new
CNN “Crossfire,” had already declared his opposition to Obama’s
policy. “Most Americans would agree the use of chemical weapons
is frightening and worthy of condemnation,” he said. “Most
Americans would also suggest, however, that both sides in the Syrian civil
war are terrible, and that there is not a good side in this tragedy.”

Gingrich said the
American people should call their congressmen and senators and “demand
that they oppose the media pressure and elite pressure to attack Syria.”

Now thatObama has
backed away from an immediate strike and says he wants Congress to vote
on it, it is time for our media not only to offer both sides, but to analyze
the dubious case for war.

First, Obama is falsely
claiming there is a direct threat to the United States from alleged Syrian
use of chemical weapons.

He
told PBS, in a completely convoluted statement, “…when
you start talking about chemical weapons in a country that has the largest
stockpile of chemical weapons in the world, where over time, their control
over chemical weapons may erode, where they’re allied to known terrorist
organizations that, in the past, have targeted the United States, then
there is a prospect, a possibility, in which chemical weapons that can
have devastating effects could be directed at us. And we want to make
sure that that does not happen.”

He went on to say
that “we want to make [sure] that they [chemical weapons] are not
loose in a way that ultimately, could affect our security.” By taking
action, he claimed, we “may have a positive impact on our national
security over the long term.”

Obama is spouting
a bunch of nonsense, and the media know it. Asked about this rationale
on the air, CNN reporter Jill Dougherty pointed
out the obvious—that “it is very dubious that Syria could
ever launch some type of chemical weapons directly against the United
States.”

In fact, destabilizing
the Syrian regime would very well lead to the spread of those chemical
weapons and a wider Middle East war.

Earlier in the PBS
interview, Obama also claimed that “America’s core self-interest”
is somehow related to “a well-established international norm against
the use of chemical weapons.” This is more gibberish designed to
somehow justify the attack on Syria under the War Powers Act. But threats
to international order are not cited as justification for military action
in the statute.

Whatever their intentions,
the political left is doing a better job of debunking the Obama Administration’s
rationale for war than are some Republicans.

A release
from the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) quotes Francis Boyle of the
University of Illinois College of Law as saying that, by Obama’s
own standard, the justification for war falls short. He points out that
the Obama Administration document
on chemical weapons in Syria uses the standard of “high confidence”
that they were used when the appropriate standard by the International
Court of Justice is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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The release notes
that Secretary of State John Kerry claims, “We assess that the opposition
has not used chemical weapons,” but that Carla del Ponte of the
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said
the rebels may have done so.

The IPA release quotes
Robert Parry, a critic of the war in Iraq, as saying that Bush’s
case for that war “at least had details that could be checked,”
but that the Obama administration document contains “no direct quotes,
no photographic evidence, no named sources, nothing but ‘trust us.’”

This is a time for
honest reporting, like the comments we saw from CNN’s Dougherty,
and a presentation of both sides of the story.